The numbers behind App Tracking Transparency

It's been a while since I last looked at the numbers behind Apple's attempt to end Facebook (aka App Tracking Transparency), so let's do that.

Since it's become a requirement, 24,131 iOS apps have enabled App Tracking Transparency. Some because they need it, while others use a 3rd party SDK that needs it. If you recall, last time I looked into ATT, the count was at around 10,000. That was back in April, about a week into its mandate.

Now, a little over three months in, the number isn't that high, which to me means enough developers waited to see what would happen with opt-in rates, and many decided it just wasn't worth it.

But there's another angle here that's worth looking at—How many apps enabled and then disabled App Tracking Transparency?

393, according to our SDK Intelligence.

I expected this number to be a bit higher, but it just reinforces the wait-and-see strategy I suspect many developers were applying. The big guys had to enable it so their code (and potentially, revenue stream) doesn't completely break. The rest just waited...

But even though the number of disablers is small, the list contains very interesting apps. Here are a few that you probably know:

• WhatsApp
• Twitch
• Pokémon Go
• Instacart

And the list goes on to include banks and payment apps, games, dating apps, shopping apps, and many others.

The obvious question here is "why?", and there can be a few answers. My initial guess is that opt-in rates are so abysmal it's not worth having it all together because those who do opt-in aren't providing enough value to whatever system is using that data.

Apple did an amazing job at chocking this entire industry by turning off access to unique identifiers by default and forcing developers to ask for permission, but the real killer was defaulting the permission popup to never display.

While it looks like Apple is uncontested on ATT, I have a feeling this is far from over.